ARTIST STATEMENT
Payton Harris-Woodard is interested in investigating complexities within the autonomy of the black female body through an autobiographical sense. Through the medium of oil paint, collage, and handmade paper she utilizes various colors, invented forms, and sinuous matter to build a personal catharsis that exists within both a heavy past, yet a nuanced present. Her figures incompletely explore the most human aspects of the body, while placing emphasis on the monstrous qualities of one’s psyche. In the viewer’s face, she reclaims self-consciousness to reveal the emotional journey of being inside a body, and simultaneously reconciling with reflection, isolation, and difference on multiple dimensions. Through transformation and control, the works celebrate the sticky bits of finding one’s own voice and existing across the virtual, real, casual, and academic spaces.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Artist, painter and visualization expressionist Payton Harris-Woodard was born in 1996 on the Southside of Chicago, IL. She received her BA from Columbia College Chicago in 2019 and is currently an MFA Candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she is the recipient of the New Artists Society Scholarship award.
© Payton Harris-Woodard